At least that’s what they said.
When Winthrop had been recruited into their fold three years before, he’d accepted The Illuminati’s good works at face value. But in the last year or so, he’d begun to have some doubts. He still wanted to believe that the majority of the organization was trying to live up to its stated ideals but he was no longer the devout follower that he had once been.
The two men pushed through a cloud of mist that hung knee-high between the trees and suddenly they were there. Before them was The Temple of Pain.
Winthrop felt his heart skip as he stared at the stone structure. He felt a strong bond with history take hold of him. Men and women had lived here, fornicated here and died here… and now he had come to this place, possibly the first White Man to ever dare step foot inside.
The mists seemed thickest around the Temple, as if the jungle itself was trying to hide its secrets from prying eyes.
Winthrop moved forward, staring at the structure in awe. There was a single entrance, the dark hole of the cave covered by cobwebs. On each side of the doorway stood five-foot high stone guards, shaped like men but bearing the faces of demons. Each guard held a carved sword, point planted in the ground. They were gorgeous works of art though the impression left by the faces was anything but beautiful.
“Do you hear that?”
Winthrop turned. Lunt was looking all around them, his own face a mixture of curiosity and excitement. For a moment, Winthrop was confused but then he realized what his friend meant: it was silent. Absolute silence. No birds. No insects. Not even the sound of the wind in the branches.
Lunt’s grin broadened, though one corner of his mouth was twisted down due to the scarring. “According to legend, the Temple was sealed when the natives fled this place. A curse placed upon the ground said that from that day forward, only one person at a time could enter the Temple and none could leave with The Devil’s Heart.” Lunt tilted his head in the direction of the doorway. “Last chance, Richard. You or me?”
“I’ll do it.” Winthrop looked away from Lunt. The year before, he’d had a terrible experience in Mexico, and it had left some in The Illuminati doubting his ability to work in the field. They thought he was a coward but Winthrop knew he wasn’t. It was just that the screams of those vampire children had haunted his dreams… in the end, he knew that he’d done the right thing by setting their home ablaze, but to see their faces as they met their ends had been unsettling, to say the least.
Setting down his backpack, Winthrop knelt and opened it, taking out a small piece of parchment. It was supposedly a map of the Temple’s floor plan, though it neglected to show any of the traps that the natives had left behind. Still, it gave him an advantage that most men wouldn’t have had. The Illuminati had found the map at great expense, after all.
“Don’t leave without me,” he said, tucking the paper into the waistband of his pants.
“Be careful, Richard.”
Winthrop grinned. “You worry too much. I’ll be back before you know it.”
Water dripped from the ceiling and the hallway was alive with the sounds of scampering rodent feet. The temple’s odor was one of stale air, moist vegetation and death. Winthrop’s nostrils flared as he drank it all in, waving his burning torch ahead of him. He felt like a trespasser, invading someone’s tomb or home. It wasn’t the first time that he’d experienced that sensation — indeed, since joining up with The Illuminati, he had felt this way too many times to count.
The passage twisted, winding its way deeper into the heart of the temple. Winthrop paused occasionally to study the pictograms on the wall, holding his torch close and blowing away the dust and cobwebs. The images were crude and almost uniformly disturbing: they showed screaming victims, most of them women, being raped by demonic figures. In some cases, the victim’s heads were being yanked free, their entrails spilled to the ground.
A gasp made Winthrop freeze in place. He peered into the darkness but saw nothing. It had sounded human but he knew that his senses couldn’t be trusted in this environment. The human mind was always too quick to dip into the realm of imagination.
After making a quick check of his map, Winthrop pushed on. Eventually, he came to a small chamber that lay just ahead, the center of which was illuminated by a shaft of sunlight, let in by a circular hole in the ceiling.
Winthrop made no move to enter the chamber. He was well aware that the men who built this place were famous for their intricate traps. Whether they feared or adored The Devil’s Heart — or both — they wouldn’t have left it unprotected.
Fishing around in his pockets, Winthrop’s fingers returned with a small candy bar. It was a Butterfingers, which had become Winthrop’s favorite since their introduction a few years prior. He tossed it into the chamber, watching as it skidded across the floor, coming to a rest in the center of the sunbeam.
At first, nothing happened. Winthrop was just about to relax when he heard a grinding sound emanating from the chamber walls. Suddenly they sprang together like a mousetrap, sharpened spikes extending from hidden recesses. Anyone unfortunate enough to be caught in the trap would have died in agonizing fashion and as the spikes began to retreat and the walls slid creakingly back into place, Winthrop knew that he’d have to be doubly careful from here on.
The mechanics of such a design, especially when made by a primitive people, were quite impressive. It made him wonder at the men who had frequented this place — most of the local tribes refused to speak of them but it was obvious that they had been brilliant in some fashion.
Pressing himself against the walls, Winthrop slowly made his way across the chamber. Now that he knew they were there, he could make out the tiny protrusions of the spikes. Careful not to place too much of his weight on the mechanism hidden under the floor, he managed to reach the other end, where he found another hallway. This was extended some twenty or thirty feet, ending in a wooden door.
Winthrop looked up and down the hall, seeking some sign of the next trap. His attention became fixed to a dark area of the floor and he knelt beside it, reaching down to brush away the cobwebs. To his surprise, his fingers felt nothing but air beneath. The hole was not as impressive a trap as the room he’d just passed through but it was obviously just as effective — when he waved the torch into the opening, he saw the mangled bones of at least two men. They had died long ago, unable to climb out with their broken limbs. Starving in the dark was not something that Winthrop ever wanted to experience.
Standing up, he calculated the jump he’d have to make. He tossed his torch to the other side and it landed in a plume of dust. The flames kept burning, though they dimmed slightly.
Taking several steps back, Winthrop took a deep breath and began to sprint. His feet left the ground just before reaching the abyss and he hurtled through the air, wind milling his arms and legs. He landed hard on the other side, stumbling to his knees.
After taking several deep breaths to calm his beating heart, he snatched the torch back up and studied the door that lay before him. It was carved out of local wood and could be pushed inward, swinging open. He looked for any traps but found nothing at first glance. Taking a moment more, however, revealed a discoloration on the wood, right where a man’s hand would naturally fall when opening the door. Poison, he mused. He wasn’t sure if the poison would still be good after all this time but he wasn’t willing to take the chance. He reached for the center of the door, pushing against it with his shoulder. The weighting mechanism was designed to work against anyone that used another means beyond the obvious and it took a few seconds of hard work to get the door to push open.